New shooting range could affect city plans

The city of Loveland has begun discussions with the owners of Liberty Firearms Institute

By Jessica Maher

Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
05/01/2014 10:39:43 PM MDT

Plans for a regional police training center in Loveland could change dramatically after city officials recently learned that a private facility will offer many of the same services just a couple of miles away.

The owners of USA Liberty Arms, a gun store in east Fort Collins, plan to break ground later this year on the region's largest shooting facility. Located at the Interstate 25 and US 34 interchange in Johnstown, the Liberty Firearms Institute would feature a gun store, classrooms, a restaurant and offices on the main floor.

In the basement of the 100,000 square-foot building, there would be simulation rooms for tactical use and SWAT training, along with 60 shooting lanes, according to Tyler Texeira, who is the owner's representative for Liberty Firearms Institute.

"We are marketed to private memberships and law enforcement," Texeira said.

That was news to city of Loveland officials, who are knee-deep in the first phase of planning for a regional police training center that would be located east of Boyd Lake Road at the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport. The city of Fort Collins has also come on board as a full partner in the project.

Loveland facilities manager Ken Cooper said that city staff recently reached out to Liberty Firearms and learned about the owners' interest in building relationships with law enforcement agencies.

"They're incorporating an awful lot of the same capacity and capability on the firing range side that we plan," Cooper said.

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The law enforcement piece, which Texeira said has always been part of the plan but hasn't been the focus of a marketing effort yet, could put a city-run center in direct competition with the private venture. The cities of Loveland and Fort Collins are taking the lead with the regional campus and aim to have user agencies that help pay for it.

Plans for the "one-stop shop" regional campus include 35 shooting lanes, a SWAT/shoot house, scenario village and classrooms. The campus would also include a driving range, which has been identified as a regional need, Loveland police chief Luke Hecker said.

At nearly $17 million, the shooting range for the regional training campus would not be complete until 2017. A potential partnership with Liberty Firearms could offer Loveland and Fort Collins police a chance to start training in a new location sooner while possibly pushing back or axing the most expensive piece of the project.

Law enforcement officials from both cities will have upcoming meetings with owners of the future Johnstown facility, Cooper said.

"We are certainly in a position where we need to keep a close eye on the Liberty Arms project; we need to understand what its value or potential value to us is," Hecker said. "We certainly are interested in advancing a training solution that's as effective and economical as possible."

For now, Cooper said the city plans to keep on the same course with the project, for which the cities of Loveland and Fort Collins are splitting the $310,000 cost for preliminary programming and design.

But at least one city councilor believes the city should now reconsider the entire plan. In an email to council and city staff, councilor Troy Krenning said he'd like to have discussion about utilizing the Liberty Arms facility for shooting training and building a driving track on the fire training grounds.

"An exclusive driving and shooting range for a community our size seems difficult to justify and at the current time I do not support spending millions of dollars on it," Krenning wrote.